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While the European Parliament confirmed their position on the next EU long-term budget and structure, it is now the turn of EU member states. The Austrian presidency is expected to hand over negotiations to the Romanian presidency as they are not expected to be finalized during this semester.

Earlier this month, members of European Parliament (MEPs) confirmed their position on the next EU long-term budget, including a precise breakdown of the amounts for each EU programme. They stated that the budget for Horizon Europe should be set at €120 billion in 2018 prices, substantially increasing the the Commission’s original proposal that was set at € 94.1 billion.

Though, as reported by Science Business, the negotiations on Horizon Europe with Member States have come quite far, many challanges remain and the Council’s Austrian presidency will not be able to settle negotiations on the figure proposed by Parliament because finance ministers across Europe have yet to decide on the EU’s multiannual financial framework and how it will be structured after Brexit.

EU officials say that the issue of funding synergies is one of the biggest challenges of Horizon Europe. The commission has yet to find a good way of increasing R&D investment in member states by creating a mix of funding sources, after previous attempts have not been so successful. For this reason, the decision on how to organise synergies between EU’s research funds and other funding streams will likely be delayed until the Romanian presidency to settles in.

The commission, however, remains confident that council negotiations on Horizon Europe will be concluded by March 2019. The negotiations will be “ready in time” for the elections, said Signe Ratso, deputy director-general at the commission’s DG Research and Innovation.

Meeting of member states’ research delegations this week in Brussels saw further disagreement over the direction of Horizon Europe. And a proposed mission to build a universal quantum computer is scratched